This is despite a number of young players, including Tom Davies, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Ademola Lookman being given chances under Ronald Koeman in the last 12 months.

Walsh earned rave reviews while on loan at Yeovil Town in the 2015-16 season, where he marked himself out as a future star with a number of mature performances that belied his tender years.

The 19-year-old returned to Everton an improved player for the experience and on the back of signing a new two-year deal last September was doubly determined make the next step up.

Walsh then earned wider recognition after winning the Premier League 2 player of the month for February.

Liam Walsh has joined Birmingham City on loan from Everton (Image: Steve Bond/Pinnacle)

But just how close is Walsh to breaking into the Everton team?

“He runs games,” Everton’s under-23 manager David Unsworth said.

He did so in an impressive win over Southampton at Goodison, in front of the watching Ronald Koeman, but when the Blues boss was asked how many of the under-23s were close to following Tom Davies into the first-team set-up, he said: “Difficult, difficult, we have already big competition with our midfield players.

“I was really happy how Matthew Pennington is playing, how he came back after his injury, maybe he is one of the few players from that team really close to the first team.”

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It will have been tough to take for the club’s emerging talents, especially after a season’s best performance had cemented their place at the top of the Premier League 2 table. A shift in Everton’s transfer policy in recent seasons, ramped up since the injection of Farhad Moshiri’s cash, has seen Everton scour the Football League for young players and shown themselves willing to pay sizeable transfer fees to land them.

Director of football Steve Walsh said: “I’ve completely refurbished our youth recruitment, too. I’ve appointed Jamie Hoyland as under-21 head of recruitment and given him two full-time people, Damian Matthew in the south and Tony Grant in the north.

“I’ve said to those three to go away and find me the best five or six players where they’re at an age I can invest. We might have to pay a bit of money but, if they’re the right people, we’ll do it.”

Liam Walsh starred while on loan at Yeovil Town in the 2015-16 season (Image: Tom Sandberg/Pinnacle)

For the existing crop of first-team hopefuls, this makes life even harder.

There’s a strong argument to say that Walsh and Co. are the best second string Everton have had in a generation - a point which was reinforced with the club's Premier League 2 title win.

Yet, and he makes few apologies for this, Koeman’s focus is the short-term.

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Though the Blues boss will rightly point to the fact he used Davies, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Mason Holgate and Ademola Lookman regularly last season, while Jonjoe Kenny made the bench for the derby, his transfer plans centre more around the recruitment of experience; players for the here and now.

And his words suggest few other youngsters will be called upon and it leaves Walsh, and many of his team-mates, in a difficult position.